Tennis and Toast
by Dollybelleol'whatserface
Summary: What' he asks innocently. 'It's decorative' Linked with Martian Man and Donna Dunghead. Late S2, the TARDIS has moved the Doctor's suits to Rose's room. Shared bed, toast crumbs, tennis. Rose's first attempt at telling the Doctor she loves him.


Tennis and Toast

**Disclaimer:** Ask RTD and Shakespeare

**Author's Note:** Oh yes. Another one-shot. The idea for this sort of sneaked up on me after I re-read one of my other stories; Martian Man and Donna Dunghead-involving the Doctor and Donna but essentially about Rose, where Donna works out that the Doctor probably shared a bed with Rose. So, this can be read as a prequel to that, I suppose, or on its own.

* * *

His Converse and her trainers sit neatly side-by side at the foot of her bed. Well, _hers_ sit neatly. His look as though they've been abandoned; the left stands up, though the tongue slouches slightly, but the right lies on its side, haphazardly. A perfect reflection of the man who wears them. Supposedly neat, but with a hint of sloppiness. A well-tailored, pinstriped suit, but one which is crumpled and paired with Converse. An angular, handsome face with a chiseled jaw and cheekbones, but with a mop of tousled brown hair. Ruler-straight sideburns slice bad skin.

The Doctor.

It wasn't just his shoes, either. Very gradually, almost tentatively, various possessions had found their way into Rose's room. A book of Shakespeare's Sonnets sat on the bedside table from that time when the line, _"Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again"_ had somehow lodged itself in his head and he had been unable to remember which Sonnet it was from.

He had fidgeted; drumming his fingers incessantly against his knees, muttering rhyming couplets under his breath in an attempt to place the line, until had had grown so frustrated with himself that he had grumbled out of bed and stalked off to the library-Rose biting her lip to hold back a giggle at his antics.

He was _hopeless_ when he had something on his mind; something nagging at him. Like a bear with a sore head. It made him restless, and he wound himself up into a state of almost manic determination. Dead-set on satisfying his whim or itching curiosity.

"Sonnet 22," he had announced loudly, with an enlightened grin, eyes gleeful as he had marched back into Rose's room a few minutes later. He had had the air of a man who had just discovered something groundbreaking; waving the slim volume of Sonnets at her in triumph.

"_My glass shall not persuade me I am old, so long as youth and thou are of one date,_" he had recited to her proudly, scrambling back into bed. It was either an impromptu Shakespeare master class, or an insight into what he regarded as a faint reassurance. Both, perhaps.

"What's that mean, then?" Rose had asked, smiling at the self-satisfied expression on his face, eyes questioning and interested as she watched him settle beside her.

"Ohh," the Doctor had said dismissively, gently throwing the Sonnets in the direction of the bedside table. "Just that…" he had shrugged and turned to look at her, frowning thoughtfully; searching for the right words.

Ever so slightly, she had raised her eyebrows at him in patient encouragement and had waited for him to continue.

"Until you start cracking open the anti-aging cream and looking like your mum and _well_…need a hearing aid…I'll be all right," he'd finished cryptically.

Rose had snorted, not having any idea of what he was on about. And the subject had then been changed to the invention of tea towels…

So that was how the Sonnets ended up there.

Next to them sat a completed Rubik's cube, which had taken him all of two seconds-much to Rose's disgruntled disbelief. Then there were the small, clunky bits of radio with over spilling wires tangling in and around what looked like a measuring jug, with rough holes poked into the sides. One of the Doctor's 'I've-just-had-a-brainwave-so-I'm-going-to-build-something-you-won't-be-able-to-pronounce-until-the-circuit-stops-working-and-I-abandon-it' projects.

Rose had an inkling that this time it was something to do with shortening sound waves, though she couldn't put money on it.

Then there were the dirty white rolls of parchment that smelt strongly of ale and pig's muck, accompanied by a couple of bedraggled quills. A re-draft of the opening Canto of _Don Juan_, he'd told her, loftily when she'd asked. Said he was doing a favour for Lord Byron.

He was like a restless child on a long car journey; needing to be supplied with all manner of thick colouring books, crosswords, felt-tip pens and the odd service-station ice cream to keep quiet.

The Doctor, as he'd once told her, couldn't see the attraction in going to sleep; rather, he preferred it when it was quiet. It meant he had an opportunity to reflect, to relax his mind…to ponder and get lost in his thoughts. Rest for a bit and re-charge his batteries, so to speak. It _was_ the Time Lord equivalent of going to sleep…he just didn't need to lose consciousness in order to do it.

Occasionally, when Rose was asleep, with the Doctor lying next to her; the sleeve of his jacket just grazing the sleeve of her pyjama top, he would stare up at the ceiling, sleeping in every sense of the word but for his open eyes. They would drift, every so often though, to the pink-and yellow female when she muttered in her sleep or rolled over.

Of course, Rose didn't know this, because when asleep, humans aren't the most perceptive of beings and so she took it for granted that, the Doctor built flux capacitors and wrote letters to Plato whilst she slept. She wasn't wrong, either; just not entirely right.

What else was there? Well, there were several pinstriped suits hanging up in her wardrobe amongst her jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. A dark grey suit with red pinstripes sandwiched between an original Madonna t-shirt from the eighties and a mini skirt she'd worn to go and see The Beatles in the sixties. The thing was, though; the Doctor certainly wasn't the type to cart an armful of suits from _his_ wardrobe to _hers_. It was far too much like moving house…far too domestic.

It had been chilly in the TARDIS' lab-like the history classrooms at school in the old part of the building in the middle of winter. Ones where the radiators hadn't worked since 1902. She had been freezing; wearing a t-shirt and jeans with goosebumps prickling up all over her arms, shivering slightly and so she had went back to her room to shove on a fleece or a jumper or something; abandoning their discussion of earth-based cereals that they'd been having as she'd helped the Doctor analyse a Wurm's saliva sample.

She'd been taken aback when she'd opened the slightly creaky doors of her wardrobe and had been met with the sight of far more clothes hanging up on the railing in front of her than there had been that morning. And they certainly weren't female.

She'd reached out a hand to stroke the sleeve of one of the Doctor's _many _brown suits; feeling the heavy fabric beneath her fingers, as if checking to see that it was really there.

"Doctor?" she'd called, still jiggling the sleeve absent-mindedly. She'd heard him chuntering under his breath as he'd approached her room.

"Rose Tyler, only _you_ could get yourself into trouble whilst getting a _jumper_. What's wrong? There isn't a metal lamppost at the back of your wardrobe, is there? 'Cause if there is, I _definitely_ wouldn't recommend accepting Turkish Delight off…"

His bewildered, yet good-natured complaining had pittered off as he'd walked in to find her standing in front of her very full wardrobe, doors thrown wide with her arms folded, throwing an 'All right-what-are-you-up-to-then?' look back at him over her shoulder.

"_Ah_."

"Your suits are in my wardrobe," she'd pointed out, unnecessarily, waving a hand at them.

The Doctor had stuck one hand in his pocket and had reached up to pull on his ear with the other, looking quite uncomfortable.

"Yes, thank you Rose. I can see that," he'd said, grimacing up at the ceiling, which hummed rather guiltily.

"Well _I_ didn't do it," the Doctor had protested indignantly after a moment, holding his hands up at her, looking at her as if he were afraid that she was going to tell him off, at the same time as Rose had calmly said, "I don't mind."

"What?" he'd gabbled, quickly, voice going slightly squeaky. Again, at the same time as Rose had soothed "I know," looking for once, quite shy.

They had looked at each other awkwardly, smiling at their shared ability to speak at the same time. Twice.

The Doctor had rubbed the back of his neck, inclining his head at her slightly to urge her to speak first.

"I mean…well, you might as well 'cause you spend most of your time in…" Rose had trailed off clumsily, cheeks glowing pink, mouth dry.

"Yeah," the Doctor had agreed at once, speaking shortly and rather loudly, as if he wanted nothing more than for the conversation to be finished and for the thick tension of unsaid, determinedly ignored emotions between them to go away.

There had been a small silence.

It had been the first time that they'd had to acknowledge that the pair of them were now actually _sharing_ a bedroom. Sharing the same _bed_. It wasn't Rose's room anymore; it was _theirs_. They'd stepped over some sort of line; fleetingly touched the issue that they weren't just a human and a Time Lord who happened to travel the universe together; they were the _Doctor_ and _Rose_.

Though there was definitely nothing _sexual_ about their bed-sharing, Rose had never shared a bed with anyone other than her mum or Mickey before, and the Doctor had never shared a _bedroom_ never mind a _bed_ for any period of time with any of his companions.

Clearing his throat, the Doctor had pulled a red jumper off a hanger and had handed it to Rose, without saying anything.

They'd given each other a small smile and then Rose had shut one door and the Doctor had shut the other and they had walked out of _their_ room, Rose pulling her jumper over her head. But for some reason, though; she hadn't felt as cold anymore; her cheeks had been warm and she'd felt distinctly…flustered.

Now, his Converse looked so _right_ beside her trainers; her mobile beside his Sonic Screwdriver; both of their jackets slung over a low chair, the sleeves hanging inside out and knotted together in a messy heap, that it was difficult to think back and remember how the room had looked before, like trying to eat mashed potato without gravy.

It felt…disconnected and surreal; thinking about how they were before, as if she were thinking about two characters in a story rather than herself and the Doctor. It didn't feel…real. Because she used to sit with him in the control room before she went to bed; watching him fiddle with levers and buttons and listening to his funny ramblings, playing with her hair, her head lolling against his shoulder as sleep threatened to claim her, always fibbing and telling him that she wasn't that tired. But he used to just shake his head at her in dry amusement and give her a gentle shove in the direction of her bedroom, fondly saying, 'Rose Tyler. Go. To. Bed.'

And so she would. She used to give him a quick hug or rumple his hair up for him, smiling cheekily but she would always leave him to his tinkering in the console room and he would always watch her retreating back, as if making sure that she got to her door safely.

But one night had changed that; changed the way they were with each other ever so slightly; brought them closer and nudged them into untouched territory. The night they had left Krop Tor. Several hours, cups of tea and chocolate biscuits after they'd told the little crew that they were the 'Stuff of Legend' and had sent them milling back on their way the Doctor had sat on the edge of Rose's bed, chatting as Rose had wandered backwards and forwards, taking her make-up off and putting her jewellery away.

They had talked, and talked and _talked_; about the most ridiculous of subjects, burbling on about anything that popped into their heads, laughing wildly; more animated and excitable than they had any reason to be, like two children who had been given too many additive-ridden sweets. Words smashed together, sentences ran into each other as they talked over one another and interrupted and they were talking, so, so much but saying nothing at all and it was because they were so _shaken_…so very, very frightened.

Because they had come _so_ close to losing each other. Rose's hand had grazed the Doctor's sleeve every other sentence, taking comfort from feeling him next to her; feeling a slight warmth beneath her fingertips, and the Doctor's gaze had never once fallen from Rose; her hair, her pale face, too-shiny eyes and trembling hands. It was as if they could shut out their fears, worries and dormant admissions if they talked fast enough; laughed hard enough. Neither of them wanting to fall into that cloying, aching silence, that loitered before sleep, because then they'd be left to sink into their own thoughts and they'd be chilled with a painful stab of fear of what it would be like to be forced to live life without the other.

They _had_ fallen quiet, though and contemplative; the sudden silence buzzing, and charged around them as Rose had reappeared from her bathroom in soft pyjamas and had sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, swiping a thin layer of _Vaseline _over her lips.

The Doctor had watched her; preoccupied eyes taking in the strands of damp hair that were sticking to her cheeks, wet from where she'd washed her face; and the pink, puffy skin around her eyes.

As she'd wiped the excess on her duvet, the Doctor's hand had found hers, stilling it and they'd sat for a few minutes; opposite sides of the bed, joined only by their tightly entwined fingers.

"Do you want me to stay?" the Doctor had asked softly, voice barely more than a murmur.

Rose hadn't said anything. She'd simply nodded; bobbing her head up and down the tiniest fraction, and she'd let go of his hand and crawled underneath the bedcovers. After the slightest bit of hesitation, the Doctor had climbed in beside her, warily, unsure until Rose had made a fleeting gesture towards him; her arm brushing his.

Almost painfully slowly, she'd inched towards him, her head nuzzling into his shoulder until the Doctor had put his arm around her, pulling her close so that she was on her side, her arm wrapped around his stomach.

"Thanks," she'd whispered as they'd settled against each other and had laid in a comforting silence. He'd closed his eyes and smiled slightly as she had raised her head and had given him a quick, friendly peck on the cheek.

And he'd never left. Night after night, he'd stay stretched out on her bed, writing or reading or buzzing at something with his Sonic Screwdriver until she came out of the bathroom in her pyjamas and she'd get in beside him and they'd lie next to each other chatting. Not always cuddled up and entwined, but touching; his fingers nestled against hers or their elbows squashed together.

It's still the sight of their shoes, though that makes her smile. The toe of his left touches the toe of her right; the same with the heels. The thing _is_…they're not like that just by chance. When Rose was younger, she used to come in from school and kick off her shoes by standing on the heel and then throw them to the side higgedly-piggeldy, but her mum had managed to shame her out of doing that, eventually, so that she took them off properly and put them down together, tidily.

The Doctor had put his beside hers on purpose. It had been a conscious action; he'd had to think about doing it, even if he hadn't realised what it meant. He hadn't just slipped them off and left them in the middle of the floor; leaving them out, implying that he wasn't stopping. Putting them beside Rose's was akin to tidying them _away_; giving them a proper place. Their shoes were together, facing the same direction, and though Rose had never really thought about it before, she was thinking about it now; what their joined shoes symbolised. What shoes meant. You could tell a lot about someone from his or her shoes. Did they walk on the outside of their foot or the inside? Did they undo their shoes properly, or were they lazy and just pulled their shoes off without untying the laces? In which case, the back of the shoe; the heel bit would be weaker than the rest-more caved-in on itself.

With the Doctor's Converse, though, it was more about their actual _presence _beside her trainers rather than the state they were in that had made her pensive…

Because, if he had any intention of going back to the way things used to be, of leaving her to sleep on her own again, would he have put his shoes next to hers? If he had any intention of ever leaving her, no matter what the universe threw at them; all the black holes, wires and evil drawings…would he have taken his shoes off and aligned them perfectly with hers?

He'd told her once; what seemed a very, _very_ long time ago, on a chilly night outside a café that he wasn't going to leave her. And now…she can't help but believe him.

An amused-sounding male voice behind her makes her jump and she climbs out of her thoughts a bit self-consciously, realising that she's been standing stock still staring at _shoes_ for a good ten minutes as she's been thinking about what it's like, sharing a bedroom with the Doctor.

"Last time I checked, Galileo's map of the Heavens wasn't drawn all over the floor," he remarks smartly and she finds herself turning around looking a bit embarrassed to face the Doctor. His eyebrows are raised and he's carrying a plate stacked with a teetering pile of toast.

"No, I know," she blushes. "I was just…"

"Staring at the floor as if it were the most interesting thing you've ever seen since… _oh_…yesterday?" he suggests teasingly, and Rose grins back with her tongue peeking through her teeth, deciding not to correct him; that she was actually looking at their _shoes_.

Because that was just as mad, really.

"_Thinking_," she tells him, mock self righteously, tipping her head on her side to look at him.

"Yeah, I wondered what the burning smell was," he admits breezily, looking thoughtful, as if she'd just told him something he'd been puzzling over for a while as he saunters into the room and sits himself down on the bed with a loud _flump_, only just managing to keep the plate steady.

"Oi!" she yelps, doing her best to sound insulted, realising that he was implying something derogatory about her intelligence.

She scowls at him, trying to think of something clever and Jackie-ish to say back at him. Something teasing and not too scathing, but her capacity for backchat seems to have deserted her.

The Doctor's eyes are twinkling at her. So she twinkles back.

"Oh, shut up," she says playfully and slopes over to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

"Did you toast the whole _loaf_?" she asks him in what sounds like tickled disbelief and admonishment as she swipes a slice of buttery toast from the top of the pile and bites into it.

"Possibly."

She'd been getting settled for bed; sitting cross-legged on top of the covers in her pyjamas idly flicking through a magazine when her mobile had buzzed into life, vibrating with enough force to carve a dent in the wooden chest of drawers it was sitting on.

It had been Shareen, calling her to natter on about nothing in particular; wondering when she was coming back…what she was up to…saying she missed going out on the town with her.

After ten minutes of listening in to one side of a dull and seemingly pointless conversation, the Doctor had sighed loudly through his nose and had headed for the door with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

Rose had frowned at him as she'd talked ('_Has_ she? Did she get her money back? Nah, they wouldn't have taken it back if she'd stained it…'), silently asking him where he was going.

"_Rather_ than listen to you twitter on, I think I'd prefer to observe the browning reactions of bread molecules when exposed to dry heat," he'd whispered. "Make some toast," he'd added matter-of-factly, with a clicking wink at her expression of bewilderment.

Rose's tummy had growled appreciatively at the mention of toast and she'd gestured wildly at herself; flapping a hand at her chest, only half-listening to Shareen. A gesture which she had clearly intended for him to interpret as 'Make some for me while you're at it, will you?'

The Doctor had just shrugged as he'd hovered at the doorway, feigning obliviousness at what she meant. The elf-like smirk playing across his face had told a different story.

Rose had burbled away happily to her for another twenty minutes before Shareen had bemoaned that she was running out of credit on her phone and had admitted that she'd have to go. Rose had pressed 'end call' with a sort of dull, bittersweet ache in her chest; thrilled and slightly moved to have heard from her. She'd sent a quick text to her mum, asking how she was, reasoning that she may as well since she was on her phone, before turning it on silent and shuffling back to bed feeling a bit down. Empty.

It was then that she'd been distracted by the shoes at the foot of the bed. Then the Doctor. Then toast.

"How's Shareen?" asks the Doctor disinterestedly, through a mouthful of toast, leaning back on his elbows, and Rose gets the impression that he's not really that bothered and is only asking to be polite. Or because he thinks she'd want him to. Either way, it's nice of him.

"Fine," Rose assures him, touched that he's remembered who Shareen is. "You know…seems ok."

"Good," he comments breezily, spraying crumbs everywhere as he does so. She can't help but notice that he's got a light spattering of crumbs all down his front, too. And he's fidgeting and jiggling around like a Jack-in-the-box.

"Oi," she scolds him. "Sit still, will you? You're going to get crumbs everywhere," she warns him, half nagging, half whiney.

"Am I?"

"Yeah," she insists. "And there's nothing worse than crumbly sheets so…"she gives him a pointed look. "So…don't," she finishes lamely, helping herself to another slice of toast, with a contented sigh of "I love toast…"

The Doctor raises an inquisitive eyebrow at her, as if gauging how far he can push her and grins cockily, before leaning back and deliberately shaking his slice of toast over the duvet.

"Doctor!"

"What?" he asks innocently. "It's _decorative_," he says, flatly. "If Tracey Emin can display a couple of unwashed bed sheets and cigarette ends and call it _art_…"

"It'll be like lying in bird seed!" exclaims Rose indignantly, fruitlessly trying to dust the greasy crumbs away from her pillow.

"Hardly, Rose," replies the Doctor in a tone that suggests he thinks she's either exaggerating or being unreasonable.

Rose gives him a light shove, making the mattress creak, and crawls up towards the head of the bed, retrieving her magazine, deciding that, having unconsciously demolished two slices of toast she'd probably had more than enough.

The Doctor looks at the near-empty plate for a second, as if mystified as to how it is no longer groaning under the weight of toasted bread and warm, dripping butter before sliding it onto his already-crowded bedside table and turning to Rose.

"You can't just leave it there," remarks Rose, without glancing up from the trashy article about Shayne Ward that she's reading in _Now._

"I think you'll find I can," he informs her, making the bed tremble as he flails about, trying to get comfortable. He eventually settles for sitting up against the headboard (annoyingly) reading over Rose's shoulder. "It's my TARDIS, you see," he says pleasantly, elbowing her to emphasize his point.

Rose looks up at him balefully. "_My_ room," she reminds him politely, sticking her tongue in her cheek.

The Doctor groans and waves his hand at the crumb-covered plate pitifully, as if to say 'Yeah-I'll-move-it-in-a-minute'

"Who's that?" he asks, deciding none too smoothly to change the subject, jabbing a long finger at a waif-like glossy blonde with startling blue eyes pouting up at them from Rose's magazine.

"Paris Hilton," Rose answers immediately with distaste, wrinkling her nose at the page.

"Oh, is _that_ the name he's going by, now?" says the Doctor, looking mildly surprised. "Good for him! Look, you can't even see where his third eye was!"

Rose squints down at the page suspiciously. "Paris _Hilton'_s a _He_? Paris Hilton's an _alien_?" she hoots in disbelief, enunciating every syllable as if talking to someone particularly slow. She gazes up at the Doctor, eyes dancing with glee.

The Doctor raises his eyebrows and touches the tip of his tongue to his teeth, neither confirming nor denying anything. The gleam in his eyes, though, that matches Rose's is slightly pitying and clearly says, 'You didn't honestly think he was _human, _did you?'

Rose pulls a face, as if to say, 'Ok, fair point,' and returns her attentions to the magazine. Her eyes fall on a devastatingly good-looking actor her mum nurses a soft spot for. Well, he'd been disarming in his youth, but was getting on a bit now. Nice if you have an older-man complex…thing. Rose squeezes her eyes shut, as if trying to block out a headache, realising that _she_ could probably be included in that category now...

"Anyone else I should know about?" she asks him, casually. "My mum fancies him…he's not a Slitheen or anything, is he?" she jokes, pointing at the man in question, though she does look slightly wary.

"Ah-no. But he _is_ gay," he tells her in a business-like way, like a shop assistant highlighting the special offers of a product.

"He's _not_?!"

"He most certainly _is!_" he stresses, nodding vigorously with such force that his head is in danger of snapping off his shoulders. "Asked me if I wanted to _play tennis_ and everything!"

Rose gaped at him, eyes wide with delicious scandal. "And?" she prompted him, eagerly.

"And?!" The Doctor echoes indignantly, looking highly affronted. "_And_ I thought that was probably a euphemism for…anyway, I scarpered, didn't I?"

The Doctor shudders, giving himself a shake and watches Rose, who is shaking with silent laughter. Face bright red, shoulders heaving, but no sound coming out.

"Rose?" he asks, in concern. "Rose? It's not _that_ funny!"

"_You_," she squeals, prodding him blindly in the shoulder. "You!" she repeats, choking on laughter. "Got propositioned by….by…oh my _God_ I'm never going to be able to watch…

"Yes, _thank you_," says the Doctor, cutting her off and trying to sound dignified, tugging the magazine out of her hands just in case she finds anything else that will cause him to dredge up anymore particularly embarrassing encounters. "That's quite enough celebrity trivia for one night, I think."

Rose tuts as she manages to compose herself, and the Doctor tosses the magazine on the floor by the bed, but shifts obediently so that she's lying down beside him as he slides down the headboard and flops on his back, managing to take a lot of the covers with him.

Out of force of habit, Rose's hand slips down to hold the Doctor's lightly, but she doesn't say anything; letting out only a final, satisfied giggle.

She's quiet; thinking. The Doctor can almost hear the cogs of her mind whirring.

"You're colder than me," she notes at last, squeezing his hand. "Your hands are always cold."

"Mmh," he agrees non-commitally, squeezing her hand back. "Lower body temperature."

They fall into a comfortable silence, and Rose suddenly realises how tired she is. The light of the TARDIS around them dims, casting the room full of shadows.

"Doctor?" says Rose tentatively after a few minutes, wetting her lips, suddenly holding herself very still beside him.

He cranes round to look at her, propping his head up on his elbow. "Yeah?"

Rose swallows, looking suddenly nervous, even in the dark; images of shoes, toast and _tennis_ flickering through her head. They're followed by constructs of what she always imagined she'd look like when she's older-sort of like a greyer Jackie; stooping with a walking stick as she shuffles around the console room. She isn't sure why, but she always imagines the pensioner version of herself dressed like Mrs. Doyle from _Father Ted_. She imagines the handsome, ever-youthful Doctor beside her, guiding her towards the TARDIS' doors; his smooth hand clutching her softer, lined hand; a hand that now has more wrinkles than perforations in a tea bag…

She has a fleeting memory of a blue-eyed, gruff Doctor presenting her with their first ever bag of chips, then there's _this_ Doctor whirling her around in an impossibly tight hug, wearing a heavy orange spacesuit.

She has the strangest of urges to just…blurt it out. Tell him. He knows; of _course_ he knows by now. Or he should do. She's not sure she's ever felt such an overwhelming pull of tenderness towards him as she feels now; just because his hand's cool in hers and she's extremely tired…and there's a cobbled together mess of wires on his bedside table, and an old book full of Sonnets that she can't make head nor tail of…and his suits are in her wardrobe. She's promised him forever, and he's not going to leave her. Because his shoes are beside hers.

_I love you_

"I really love…" Rose stutters, and her voice cracks; her cheeks blushing deep crimson.

The Doctor stares at her, unmoving, taken aback-there's a spark of affection in his eyes. He looks resigned, yet curiously hopeful at the same time.

Rose starts again.

"I really _do_ love toast, you know?" she manages, with a very genuine grin.

The Doctor smiles, looking quite relieved. "I love toast, too." He squirms and fusses for a second, and scratches at the back of his neck in annoyance. "Which is just as well, really because I've got _crumbs_ sticking into me!" he whines, like an overgrown toddler.

Rose laughs at him. "And whose fault is that?" she chides, smugly.

"Mine," admits the Doctor, truthfully. "But"-

"_But_, nothing," she interrupts him, and flips his pillow over for him. "Love toast…put up with the crumbs," she teases in an astonishingly good American accent, sounding like a voiceover from the tagline of a TV advert. "Or something."

"Something…indeed," chortles the Doctor, and Rose giggles with him, rolling over towards him so that she's wedged firmly against his side, his arm around her shoulder.

Mischievously, she mutters something teasing under her breath as they both pipe down and kisses the Doctor's hairline; her hair tickling him, before snuggling back into his shoulder, closing her eyes.

The Doctor registers that she still smells faintly of the sweet, floral perfume that she's been wearing all-day; and there's a tiny niggle at the back of his mind that it's the same perfume she wore the day they met Captain Jack, because it reminds him of dancing and Glen Miller…in fact, it's a while before he realises exactly what Rose has just said…

" Oi! I _can _play tennis!"


End file.
